open source systems for libraries

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Jason et al. write: "The ReservesDirect project team has issued release candidate code for ReservesDirect 2.2. There is still some work to do with session authentication, bundling of Sirsi Unicorn integration scripts, and especially with more complete documentation. Experienced developers can download this release and begin testing it by hardcoding session information. More to come soon! We're also actively seeking partners to contribute to enhance the product and provide better integration with other ILS and Courseware systems."

Ross writes: "course/control, a PHP/PostgreSQL based reserves management system developed by Emory University General Libraries, has just released version 0.7. Changes include various bugfixes; improvements to the user interfaces in Reserves Direct and the staff interface; improved handling of crosslisted classes; and the addition of team teaching and logging of user activity."

Ross writes: "Emory University General Libraries has created and released course/control, a reserves management system written in PHP on a PostgreSQL backend. course/control's purpose is to be an alternative to commercial products such as Docutek's Eres, giving as much control to the instructors as they or the reserves department want. Instructors can manipulate their course reserves, changing their order and adding items via file upload, faxing to pdf files, or searching past reserves and the catalog through z39.50. Despite its "pre-release" version number, it's quite stable and usable."

Craighton writes about three new packages from Olivet Nazarene University Benner Library, all of which are available on their Open Source Projects page:

The Web Access Reserve Program (WARP) is a Perl script that will organize electronic reserve files by professor name and class number, and make uploading files to the web server a click and drag operation.

ILLWizard 1.0 is an ISO-10161-compliant, OCLC-Direct-Request-compatible ILL Web form that is easily customizable by non-technical librarians. This Java applet can be customized by changing the program parameters in the html file.

Shane Nackerud writes: "FreeReserves makes your e-reserves site database driven, and some of its best features include a simple copyright management feature, password protection, security at the document level, and the ability to handle multiple filetypes. FreeReserves is a free program; you can redistribute it and/ormodify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License." Looks like several different institutions are already using it, too...

Wally Grotophorst from GMU says: "OSCR uses Perl & MySQL to provide electronic reserves services at an academic library...." and that they are "entering their second year on the product." Download it yourself at timesync.gmu.edu/OSCR, it is under the GPL.

from the Open Source Course Reserves (OSCR) site: "Release 1.50 streamlines data entry and adds other features... ". looks like they've also got some php3 in there now in addition to perl, and the perl bits are moving to DBI.